Not-so Deep Thoughts

This is where I occasionally record thoughts that I have about various topics, usually articles that I read online. I guess this is my very infrequently updated blog.

NOTE: I am no longer updating this page. Instead, I am now recording my occasional thoughts in my weblog.

Emotional Choices

In her Reason article, Emotional Choices: What story you choose to believe about antidepressants reveals a deeper truth about who you are, Joli Jensen looks at various views on anti-depression medication. Her thesis: which view one ascribes to says a lot about that individual. It's at once a very academic, yet personal, article.

The invention and marketing of medications that seem to alleviate symptoms of depression and anxiety make it possible for every one of us to choose to take what some would call drugs and others would call medicine, to become (depending on your point of view) an addict, or your old self, or even a preferable self. We are all faced with this choice, as well as many others. How do we choose well?

(April, 2004)

Michael Crichton on environmentalism as religion

By viewing environmentalism as a modern religion, author and thinker Michael Crichton points out the movement's faults and what we need to do to remedy them and to have an effective environmental movement. I'm not at all sure I agree with much of it, but it's an interesting premise:

[W]e need an environmental movement, and such a movement is not very effective if it is conducted as a religion. We know from history that religions tend to kill people, and environmentalism has already killed somewhere between 10-30 million people since the 1970s. It's not a good record. Environmentalism needs to be absolutely based in objective and verifiable science, it needs to be rational, and it needs to be flexible. And it needs to be apolitical. To mix environmental concerns with the frantic fantasies that people have about one political party or another is to miss the cold truth---that there is very little difference between the parties, except a difference in pandering rhetoric. The effort to promote effective legislation for the environment is not helped by thinking that the Democrats will save us and the Republicans won't. Political history is more complicated than that. Never forget which president started the EPA: Richard Nixon. And never forget which president sold federal oil leases, allowing oil drilling in Santa Barbara: Lyndon Johnson. So get politics out of your thinking about the environment.
(December, 2003)

People Like Us

David Brooks observes in an Atlantic Monthly article that while we (liberals) talk a lot about the values of diversity, in fact we humans still tend to group ourselves with like people, which is especially puzzling in this day and age where mobility gives us greater freedom in where we live.

Living in the Austin suburb of Pflugerville, this really hits home with me. Pflugerville is probably one of the most racially diverse newer suburban areas in Austin. There was an article in the Austin paper a while back about Pflugerville being the suburb of choice for middle class African-Americans. Additionally, Pflugerville is surrounded by Dell Computer campuses, which attracts an internationally diverse population.

When we first moved to Pflugerville, one friend who was unfamiliar with Austin area demographics was surprised that we'd moved to the 'burbs, assuming that all suburbs are racially segregated. I had to explain to this friend that this isn't the case at all in Pflugerville.

On the other hand, we just bought a different home within Pflugerville. After moving, I immediately noticed that our new subdivision is not nearly as ethnically diverse as our old neighborhood. I consider our new house as being in one of the nicest subdivisions in Pflugerville. After reading Brooks' article, though, I have to question myself: though I value ethnic and racial diversity and am proud to live in Pflugerville due to its diversity, what were my real motivations for choosing the house we did?
(August, 2003)

What Should I Do With My Life?

In a recent article in Fast Company, Po Bronson suggests getting back to basics:

Instead of focusing on what's next, let's get back to what's first. The previous era of business was defined by the question, Where's the opportunity? I'm convinced that business success in the future starts with the question, What should I do with my life? Yes, that's right. The most obvious and universal question on our plates as human beings is the most urgent and pragmatic approach to sustainable success in our organizations. People don't succeed by migrating to a "hot" industry ( one word: dotcom ) or by adopting a particular career-guiding mantra ( remember "horizontal careers"? ). They thrive by focusing on the question of who they really are -- and connecting that to work that they truly love ( and, in so doing, unleashing a productive and creative power that they never imagined ).

Not an earth-shattering idea, but a well written article backed up with examples of people with whom the author has spoken. (January, 2003)

Ambushed on "Donahue"!

In a Salon article, MIT professor Henry Jenkins explains how he appeared on Donahue to debate an issue, but ended up being blindsided by the producers' attempts just to stir up controversy:

But seeking middle ground was a classic liberal mistake. On these "Crossfire"- style programs, any compromise is read as weakness. Make no mistake about it, everything here works to exaggerate the differences between you and the person sitting on the other side of the table. It isn't a conversation, a discussion or even a debate by any classical standards. You are opponents, whether you want to be or not. The producers actually keep you in separate rooms before they bring you on the air. They encourage you to interrupt each other and to show as much passion as possible, because what they want is controversy and entertainment. The producers rattle your cages until your blood is pumping and you want them to go down. They flash up captions underneath your image and you have no say over how they shorthand your position. When you cede a point, you can almost hear the folks on your own side booing. (August, 2002)

The Case (once again) for Universal Health Insurance

My company recently switched health insurance companies. During a meeting to discuss the switch, one of the handouts showed that the premium for my family coverages is something like $800/month, of which the company pays over $600. Those are pretty astounding numbers, and it reminds me once again not to take the company's largesse for granted. In a recent editorial in The American Prospect, Robert Reich, who served as Labor Secretary during Clinton's first term, reminds us why universal health insurance is even more necessary in the current slow economy.

Straight Talk about the 'New' Economy

In a recent commentary, Robert Cringely offered a pretty simple analysis of the recently ended 'new' economy:

We're just past the end of the Internet liquidity bubble. This bubble was fueled by three separate cash sources. First, venture capitalists pumped up to $100 billion per year into high tech startups. Second, you and I pumped probably $500 billion per year into Internet stocks. Third, established companies pumped another $100 billion or so per year into their own high tech ventures or into financing the dreams of customer companies that needed to buy computers and routers. From 1995-2000, we built a stack of paper equity $3 trillion tall. Then the stack fell over.

Oh, the Memories...

In an article that argues that David Horowitz's recent slavery reparations advertisement controversy is really a non-issue, a suck.com writer presents a poignant characterization of college life as seen in hindsight:

Horowitz's argument presumes that there was some point in the past when students were open and reasonable thinkers, the kind of people who would blanch at brownshirt bullying of their political opponents.

Somewhere between the childhood activities of pretending to be doctors, cops or firefighters and the adult activities of pretending to be Republicans, Democrats or CEOs, we pass through a state of supreme pretense, in which we're decked out in the clothes of adulthood with few or none of the responsibilities, in which we can throw our passions into safe and meaningless crusades. These crusades are fun, they feel important, and they can easily engage our passions. And in general nobody gets hurt, because they only people who don't realize it's all a big game are the students who are playing — and the occasional 62-year-old man [Horowitz] who can't resist bullying stupid kids.

"How Many Lies Can You Find in One Direct-mail Piece?"

This is great! Joel Spolsky analyzes the envelope containing a piece of junk mail to count the number of lies it contains.

The Internet Con Game

This commentary, "Tech stock boom was a legal con game" by Dan Gillmor, sums up the opinion I've held for a long time about the high tech boom of the late 1990s.

Nature Does Not Exist

In his article "Nature Does Not Exist", Matthew Parris claims that our concept of "Nature" serves the same purpose as a mysterious God did to Medieval man:

Ever since the Flood, floods were interpreted as divine punishments. The fire and brimstone that rained on Sodom and Gomorrah were among the most spectacularly extreme weather events in legend; but the ‘acid rain’ that we believe to harm lakes and trees is ascribed to human wickedness just as were Sodom’s troubles: our lust, in this case, for electricity 

The Crisis Continues

Back in 1998, I wrote about the crisis caused by lack of access to affordable health care in the United States. To his credit, President Clinton and his wife brought this issue to the forefront of American politics for a time. Well, it's good to see that the issue is not completely forgotten. This article on MSNBC tries to describe what it's like to live without health insurance. -August, 2000

Note to readers: I believe that the United States is prosperous enough that it can afford to make health care available to all its citizens. If it takes more government regulation to achieve this goal, so be it. Health care is expensive today.

The "Dark Side" of the Internet

U.S. News and World Report's cover story for August 28, 2000 is titled, "The Web's Dark Side." I'm sure this type of story sells magazines, but the article perpetuates myths about the Internet. The article's introduction states:

Pornographers and pedophiles on the Web, sadly, are nothing new. But because the Internet is so vast and uncharted, the full scope of its dark side has never been fully explored. And the amount of bad stuff out there is truly staggering. Rigged auctions. Viruses. Adoption scams.

First off, this "dark side" has indeed been explored, just not yet, apparently, by U.S. News. Second, and more importantly, U.S. News undermines its own thesis by pointing out that '[p]ornographers and pedophiles...are nothing new." That's right; THEY ARE NOT NEW. The same bad people who previously operated through different means are taking advantage of this new medium, just as existing good people--in U.S. News' terms, "earnest geeks and capitalist kids gulping a Starbucks as they sling code"--have done.

The section of this article on online "credit card theft" is a prime instance of bad journalism. Contrary to its title, this section profiles a bunch of folks trying to trade and sell credit card information in a chat room. It makes absolutely no mention of how this information was attained. For all we know, this information was stolen through "conventional" means, say, by a retail employee swiping a real-world merchant's credit card transaction information.

There is indeed some basic information people should know to protect themselves while using the Internet, but this article doesn't offer to educate. It just plays up existing hysteria. Just so that I'm not just ranting here, let me offer a few such gems:

I think you get the idea. End of rant.

The Betrayal of History

In a New York Review of Books article, Alexander Stille discusses how "[t]he American history taught in schools has been rewritten and transformed in recent decades by a handful of large publishers who are much concerned to meet the demands of both the multicultural left and the conservative religious right." It's a pretty disheartening story.

It takes a village?

Hillary Rodham Clinton is a vocal proponent of the zero-to-three movement, "which uses the promise and the threat of . . . new brain science to push for better pediatric care, early childhood education, and day care." In a well-written essay published in the New Yorker magazine, Malcolm Gladwell critiques the scientific basis of this movement, offering thereby a critique of popular science, intellectual history and public policy.

Clueless in Seattle

An article in the Hudson Institute's American Outlook magazine takes a critical look at the protesters who got so much attention at the Seattle WTO meetings in November, 1999. Although it appears the author has a fairly conservative viewpoint, I think he nonetheless points out that the situation was much more complex than generally portrayed in the mainstream media.

Nothing New Under the Sun?

An interesting article in History Today looks at the similarities between modern-day alien abduction experiences and the narratives of European narratives who were help captive by Indians and Aboriginals in early America and Australia.

Thought Reform 101

An interesting article in Reason Online, titled "Thought Reform 101: The Orwellian implications of today's college orientation," examines the goals and origins of the current trend in colleges: freshman orientation and residential programming designed to make students aware of and sensitive to the individuality of others. In principle, this sounds like a laudable goal, but the courses described in the article embody the worst aspects of institutionalized multiculturalism.

"That is why I am a progressive"

Lately I've found myself frequently telling people, "I've always been very liberal, yet recently I found myself sounding very conservative on certain issues..." Well, Melanie Phillips' article in the New Statesman explains the reason for that statement. According to her article, I'm no longer a liberal, but a progressive.

The Dark Side of the "New Economy"

A recent Washington Post article described the hard life of amazon.com's customer support workers. Although I agree with the article's point that there's much more to the "New Economy" than the 20-something high tech entrepreneur millionaires about whom we hear so much, I can't say that I feel too awfully sorry for the profiled employees; they may not have great jobs, but their jobs still beat those of a very many U.S. workers. Also, from my experience, an entry-level job in customer support for high tech companies is often a stepping-stone to a much better job in the "New Economy", especially for those with a non-technical education.

The Top 10 Internet Myths

I make my living from the Internet, so I you would think I'd be an evangelist of e-life. But you know, I'm still not convinced of the web's business value. I recently ran across the transcription of a speech that concisely expresses many of the concerns I've had. Here are the top 10 Internet myths according to James J. Cramer:

  1. "It's cheap to do business on the Web."
  2. "Advertising . . . will be the Web's savior."
  3. "You can give away the merchandise as long as you generate enough eyeballs because one day you will monetize those eyeballs."
  4. "You have a clever URL, they will come."
  5. "Traditional advertising brings eyeballs to the Web and generates bountiful traffic."
  6. "People like to shop on the Web."
  7. "It costs nothing to get a site up and running."
  8. "The Web is a reliable commercial activity."
  9. "Just you wait, the profitability is right around the corner."
  10. "People will never pay for content over the Web."

Fortunately for me, my main source of income, Excite, has hedged its bets by merging with @Home, to form Excite@Home. Excite, an Internet company whose business model is based largely upon many of the "myths" listed above, has combined with a company that is in the same general high tech area (cable Internet access) but which receives revenue from a more traditional and proven source: subscribers to its service. Time will tell how this all works out, but it certainly has better potential than companies whose revenue stems purely from web-related activity.

Update December 14, 2001: Well, I still believe the above statement is true; Excite wouldn't have lasted as long by itself as it did with the @Home merger, but it seems Excite@Home has flamed out big-time (fortunately, I moved on before the going got too tough). I'm still amazed that a company with over 4 million broadband subscribers (paying a monthly subscription) could just bite the dust so hard.

Update October 1, 2002: The link is dead.

Important Safety Instructions

My new office chair came with "Important Safety Instructions." It fascinates me that a chair has any safety instructions at all, not to mention a whole page of them (with illustrations):

The Fragility of Human Existence

I had an experience on the way to work recently that really made an impression on me. It was the first day of the school year. On my way to work, I pulled up to a red light in the left-turn lane near our house. There were two cars in front of me. When the light turned green, the first car pulled out, but the one immediately in front of me lurched a little and then stopped. The car has apparently stalled, and I waited as the driver tried--to no avail--to start it again.

The light turned red and the driver in front of me had apparently not yet succeeded in starting his car again, so I pulled out to the next lane to the right, so I could go around him when the light turned green again. I ended up next to this car as I waited for the next light. I looked over and saw that the driver was a teenage boy on his way to the first day of school. He looked pretty exasperated: he got out, opened the hood and peered in for a second, closed the hood, got back in the driver's seat, and then hit the steering wheel and cursed in frustration. At this point, he looked over at me and I saw big tears welling up in his eyes. When he saw that I was watching him, he looked away and wiped away the tears.

At this point, I saw a traffic cop walking his way to assist him. The light turned green, and I went on my way. But in that moment we made eye contact, I realized that inside this big, tough young man with his own car was a vulnerable boy.

The Zen of Alzheimer's

In a personal essay published in the New York Times Magazine, Steve Gettinger described how "[i]n losing touch with this world, [his] mother found peace on another plane." At one point in the article, Mr. Gettinger acknowledged that not all Alzheimer's sufferers are as lucky as his mother:

In many cases, we were well aware, Alzheimer's can turn a cheery den mother into an obscene tyrant and try the tolerance of even the most loving children. But Mom kept her social graces . . . And she could afford the care she needed. All in all, she was one of the lucky ones.

The one sentence in the essay that stayed with me: "And she could afford the care she needed." Mr. Gettinger had the luxury of paying others to care for his mother. Regardless of how serene Alzheimer's made his mother, I wonder how Mr. Gettinger's feelings on the matter might differ, if had had to care for his mother himself in his own home.

Cashing in on Y2K Hysteria

Seems like everyone's trying to make some dinero from the Y2K mania. Check this one out: the Y2K Flashlight. And only $19.95. I hear you can get a similar flashlight at a local toy store for $7.95.

Update October 1, 2002: The link is dead.

Show Me The Money!

A recent Boston Globe editorial offered thoughts on why young professionals are choosing Internet enterprises over traditional businesses. The editorialist offered three explanations for this trend:

Having never worked in "traditional" companies, I cannot comment on the first reason, though I suspect there's some validity to it. It's the other two explanations I take issue with. In my opinion, both of these explanations may be applicable to those who found and lead Internet companies, but as for the vast majority of us in the industry, this editorial is simply propagating widely believed myths about the new media industry.

In regard to the money argument, sure, some people have made a bundle from Internet start-ups, but my experience has shown that they are the exception, not the norm. Practically every recruiter who calls me tries to lure me with the promise of "getting in on the ground floor of a young company." But, from what I've seen, very few of these new companies will ever become so successful that many people make much money off of them. It's just a ploy to get you to work harder than you might otherwise and to accept a lower compensation package for the promise of more than making up for it in the future. Furthermore, the editorialists' third explanation would seem to support my argument: there are a lot of failed endeavors in the Internet industry.

Speaking of which... As for failure being some sort of "necessary qualification," that's just a bunch of hooey. Either employers recognize that a prospective employee had relatively little to do with the failure of a previous company or the employer simply has to tolerate a prospective employee's shortcomings due to the current labor shortage in high tech.

Update October 1, 2002: The link is dead.

Secrets of the Semicolon

In this Chicago Tribune article, Julia Keller discusses the increasing popularity of this "white-gloved cousin to the callused, workaholic comma or brutally abrupt period."

Update October 1, 2002: The link is dead.

Deconstructing Environmentalists

I'm about as politically liberal as they come, but this analysis of the motivations of some environmentalists in regard to genetically engineered foods is very interesting. Good analytical work, in my opinion.

America the O.K.

In an article titled "America the O.K. - Why life in the U.S. has never been better," Gregg Easterbrook of The New Republic comments on the increase in the quality of life in the United States, the perception gap between individual and national optimism and why this increase in quality of life is a taboo topic for politicians of both the Left and the Right. Interesting.

Update October 1, 2002: The link is dead.

The American Health Care Crisis

In his commentary, "The Dissipation of Decency" published on August 19, 1998 in Atlantic Unbound, Jack Beatty expressed some of the same concerns that I've had about Americans and health care since my father-in-law die of cancer in 1994 without health insurance or the ability to pay himself for the expensive care he needed. Beatty refers to a study that showed, in part:

Thirty percent of uninsured adults went without "needed medical care" in 1997, while 25 percent of uninsured children did not receive needed medical, psychiatric, or dental care. Yet 62 percent of those polled believe that the uninsured can get all the care they need.

It's both sentences in this quote that concern me. First, that so many people must go without health care. And second, that so many who have health insurance take it for granted and don't understand what life is like for those who don't have health insurance or the means to pay for necessary health care directly.

The Language Wars

In his article "The Decline of Grammar" from the December, 1983 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Geoffrey Nunberg offered a great metaphor for the work of linguistic prescriptivists--those annoying types who like to correct others' grammar (I'm glad I would never do that!).

...the process of linguistic change seems as ineluctable and impersonal as continental drift. From this Olympian point of view, not even the Norman invasion had much of an effect on the structure of the language, and all the tirades of all the grammarians since the Renaissance sound like the prattlings of landscape gardeners who hope by frantic efforts to keep Alaska from bumping into Asia.

(Mr. Nunberg's article was recently published on the Atlantic Unbound web site as part of the online magazine's feature The Language Wars.